


Things We Can't Mend

by sussexbound (SamanthaLenore)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Grief/Mourning, Loss, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-13
Updated: 2014-03-13
Packaged: 2018-01-15 13:49:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1307077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SamanthaLenore/pseuds/sussexbound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John is close, so close that Sherlock can smell the tang of the adrenaline-laced sweat that has recently dried on his skin, the metallic undertones of the blood smeared across his knuckles.  He’s not sure if he can remember a time when John has been so close and so simultaneously focused on him.  It should be intoxicating, but things have gone too wrong for too long.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Things We Can't Mend

**Author's Note:**

  * For [londoninjune](https://archiveofourown.org/users/londoninjune/gifts).



John is close, so close that Sherlock can smell the tang of the adrenaline-laced sweat that has recently dried on his skin, the metallic undertones of the blood smeared across his knuckles.  He’s not sure if he can remember a time when John has been so close and so simultaneously focused on him.  It should be intoxicating, but things have gone too wrong for too long. 

Mary. 

The baby. 

Everything Sherlock’s fault.  His fault… 

John is here in one capacity – doctor.

“Look down,” John orders, and Sherlock obeys.  He can feel John’s able fingers parting his hair, efficiently, clinically searching for abrasions, for where the steady rivulets of blood are coming from.  John means nothing by this.  He is simply doing his job.  But Sherlock revels in the touch, none-the-less.  It is all he has anymore.

“There.” John says more to himself than to Sherlock.  He grabs the wad of gauze off of the coffee table and applies pressure.  It hurts, but everything hurts—all the time.  Sherlock has gotten past caring.  "It will need sutures.  I don’t have anesthetic.  Do you want to go to the A&E?”

“No.”

“Then this is going to hurt—a lot.”

Sherlock just shrugs.

“Alright.  Hold this.  Keep the pressure.”  Sherlock moves his hand over the gauze John was holding a minute ago and watches him as he heads for the bathroom to fetch a suture kit. 

He walks briskly.  Sherlock can see the military rigidity there.  John has steeled himself.  Does it bother him, this?  Sherlock can’t fathom why.  He knows the man has seen much worse on the battlefield.  Or does it bother him because it is Sherlock bleeding all over his hands?

Sherlock pushes the thought from his mind as John returns.  Fantasy.  Cruel, merciless hope. 

John says nothing.  He prepares everything, reaches out, tilt’s Sherlock’s head down with a firm shove, removes the gauze, cuts and then shaves some of Sherlock’s hair away from the wound, cleans the area, takes a deep breath.  “Are you sure you want to do this without…”

“Yes.  Just do it.”

And the pain is quite overwhelming.  Sherlock has always had an unnaturally sensitive scalp, and he regrets this now.  He feels dizzy, almost high.  He refuses to make a sound.  He thinks about his hair instead.  The gouge is on the top of his head, near the front, and it is going to look ridiculous for weeks.  He tries to come up with ways he can disguise it until it regrows.

John works in silence.

When he is finished, he bandages the area, and sits back.  His eyes scope Sherlock’s body.  “There’s too much blood.  Where else are you hurt?”

“I don’t know.”  It’s the truth.  The fight had been a bit of a blur.  He remembers the knife, he remembers knuckles scraping against pavement, and his body being slammed against brick.  But there was too much pain.  There always is in situations like that, and it all becomes one in the same.

John stands up from the coffee table, where he has been sitting across from Sherlock, who was only too grateful for the padded comfort of the couch.  He leans forward a little to take in Sherlock’s back.  “Take your jacket off.”

Sherlock does.

John is looking at his back.

Sherlock is looking at John’s belt, only inches from his face.

John moves away, sits back down on the table.  His knee brushes against Sherlock’s.  “Jesus!”

Sherlock follows John’s eyes to the front of his shirt—large tear in the silk, blood everywhere.  Oh.

“Take off your shirt!”  He can hear the change in John.  This was a basic case before.  Now it is serious.  This is the battlefield; this is Bainbridge, skewered and bloody on the shower floor.

Sherlock does as he is told.

The wound is serious: long, starting just above his hip bone, curving up and around his waist like an angry smile, and it is deep.

John stares at it, mouth a straight line.  His color fades a little.  He looks up.  “This needs a proper surgeon.”

“You are a proper surgeon.  You treated wounds like this all the time in Afghanistan.”

“I’m not, and that’s not the point.”

John looks back down at the wound, weeping blood, and swallows hard, shakes his head.  “No.  This is different.  You need a hospital.”  He fumbles around on the table, tearing open package after package of gauze.  He begins pressing it against the wound, applying pressure.  Sherlock watches John’s hands on his skin.  He can’t feel them.  There is only pain.

“I don’t want a hospital.  I want _(_ _you_ _)_ to do it here.”

“Sherlock.  Please.  Don’t be difficult.”

“You can do it here.  We can use the table.”

John closes his eyes, pinches at the bridge of his nose.  “That is so far from being a sterile environment I don’t even know where to begin.  You’ll get an infection, Sherlock, could get blood poisoning.  I’m not doing it, and that’s final.  I’ll clean it and patch it, but you are going to the A&E.”

“Yes, Doctor.”  And it is laced with venomous sarcasm, and anger, and something else—something Sherlock never meant to expose.

John’s brow furrows.  He swallows hard.  He looks away.  He gets up.  He walks over to the hearth.  “Keep pressure on that.”  He nods to the gauze, which is slowly blooming red.  “If I clean and bandage that do you think you can take a cab?  Or should I call an ambulance.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”  Sherlock snaps.  He’s angry and doesn’t know why.

John paces the room once, twice.  Finally he goes to the kitchen. 

Sherlock is starting to feel light-headed.  He hears water running, a pot being slammed onto the cooker, a loud, prolonged cacophony of barely concealed rage, as John sweeps the entire contents of the table onto the floor in one angry flourish.  Retorts, vials, even the goddamn microscope.

Sherlock really wants to protest, but he can’t think.  He smells rubbing alcohol.  John appears in the entry to the kitchen.  His coat is gone.  The sleeves of his shirt are rolled up to his elbows.  The look on his face is almost lethal and brooks no refusal.  “You want this?  Then get in here.”

John is thorough, and he doesn’t even attempt to be gentle.  He is angry.

Sherlock feels everything.  He shuts his eyes.  He commits every second to memory: the shortness and shallowness of John’s breathing, the feel of his gloved hands (warmth bleeding through latex), as they probe, as they grab Sherlock’s hip and roughly force him onto his side, the sting as John cleans the wound, the first agonizing plunge of the needle – no warning.  Thrust after thrust, so deep into the tissue that it feels it is piercing to the very core of him.  

There is nothing but this.  There will never be anything more than this.  This is all he is allowed, all he deserves. 

Tears squeeze from under Sherlock’s closed lids in spite of his resolve.

“If you die, it’s not my fault,” John grinds out as he nears completion.  “I didn’t want this.  Just remember that. “

“I know.”  It’s barely a whisper. 

John’s hands hesitate for a moment, and he is more careful when he resumes.  Or perhaps Sherlock only imagines it – a tenderness that no longer exists, or maybe never existed at all. 

When John finishes, he bandages the wound quickly.  “I’ve missed the start of my shift at the hospital.  They’ll be livid.”

Sherlock sits up, high on pain and blood-loss, his back to John.  “I know.  I’m sorry.”

There is a moment’s silence, something in the air, hanging there, unsaid, waiting.

“We can’t keep doing this,” John finally says.  He sounds tired.

“I know.”

“ _I_ can’t.”

“I know.”

“I have a life.  I have a job.  I have a flat.”

( _But all empty – so empty_ ).

“Yes.”

“I’m going.”

“Aright.”

Sherlock hears the snap of latex as John removes and bins the soiled gloves, the rush of water from the tap as he rewashes his hands, the soft rustle of fabric as he rolls his sleeves back down. 

John’s footsteps move to the other room.  He picks up his coat.  He walks out.

When he passes the side door to the kitchen, he pauses.  He looks at Sherlock’s filthy, blood-smeared shoes.  He looks at the expertly stitched gash at his waist.  He looks over Sherlock’s shoulder.  “Good-bye, Sherlock,” just as he turns and walks away.

There is a sickening finality to it, and Sherlock hops to his feet, in desperation.  He sways a moment, has to reach out for the table to steady himself.  When he gets out the door, John is just disappearing down the steps.

“John…”

John hesitates.  He is silent and still for the count of three heartbeats, and then he continues on, he shuts the front door decidedly behind him, and he walks away.

 


End file.
